Nice one, Molander

I admire their honesty about the fact that the stumbled upon this protocol when identifying byproducts from other planned reactions, and then realized that this might be useful for scientists outside their own field. That is how you roll!

I imagine the aldehyde + alcohol makes a hemiacetal. The free OH interacts with Pd to make a new Pd-O bond at the expense of one of the acetate ligands. Beta-hydride elimination gives the ester and a Pd-H which can reduce the acetone.